Challenge of return to coaching keeps Conor O’Shea on his toes

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Testing times: O’Shea describes the instability of his coaching job with Harlequins as being “between unemployments”Times Photographer, Marc Aspland

John Westerby

Last updated at 12:01AM, December 20 2012

The precarious nature of life in professional sport was neatly summed up
recently by a rugby coach who is employed at present, but has learnt the
hard way that the time frame between success and sackings can be brutally
short. “Things are OK at the moment,” he said. “I’m between unemployments.”

Three years ago, Conor O’Shea was sitting comfortably in a plum job as
national director of the English Institute of Sport (EIS), the support
network for elite athletes. Approaching his 40th birthday, he was married
with two young daughters and, with the London Games on the horizon, he was